Will Lisa Herbold be Seattle politics’ “Comeback Kid”? She now leads Shannon Braddock by 27 votes

Lisa Herbold stands to possibly go down as the “Comeback Kid” of Seattle politics, having just taken a 27 vote lead over Shannon Braddock in the ongoing tight contest for the Seattle City Council’s District 1 seat.

The vote count as of Friday afternoon stood at 12,371 for Herbold, a 17-year aide to retiring Seattle City Council member Nick Licata, with Braddock at 12,344 votes. A recount is considered certain. Herbold has trailed since election night by margins as high as 760 votes.

District 1 Seattle City Council candidate Lisa Herbold: Leader in the clubhouse bu 27 votes.

The other tight contest, in District 2, saw incumbent City Council member Bruce Harrell lose a bit of his lead. Harrell remains 357 votes ahead of challenger Tammy Morales in the Southeast Seattle district.

If her lead holds up — still a big “if” — Herbold is expected to be an astute ally of left-activist Council members Mike O’Brien and Kshama Sawant. She has worked actively on such legislation as Seattle’s new family leave policy for city employees. In contrast to Sawant and O’Brien, however, she is far more work horse than show horse.

Ivan Weiss, an old leather-lunged labor activist in the 34th District Democratic Party, celebrated Herbold’s lead with a bit of divisive verse, writing on a District 1 Facebook page:

“With a mighty roar, see Lisa soar into District 1 lead

“She will give our neighborhoods the Council clout they need;

Landlords and developers can whine and cry and squeal

“For with Lisa on the Council, tenants get a fairer deal.”

Braddock is chief of staff to King County Council member Joe McDermott, and herself a longtime West Seattle activist. Business interests and the Seattle Firefighters raised a six-figure “independent” war chest to support her candidacy, but spent it on TV commercials that were seen outside District 1 by voters who could not support their candidate.

The District 1 campaign was upbeat throughout, but actually grew testy this week.

In a letter to her supporters, Braddock said: “Sawant has a call of action for Herbold, this is my call of action for you.” She said that the socialist District 3 Council member called “on her supporters to intervene in our election process in favor of Lisa Herbold.”

“This is simply false,” Herbold told her backers.

Herbold went on to confirm that Sawant asked if her campaign “needed additional resources.” To which Herbold responded with a cool indication that she doesn’t want to be anybody’s dependent:

“We told her (Sawant), like we told others, that we have a strategy to win this race. Our team continues to work to implement our strategy for our district.” In short, thanks but no thanks.